Blood of Reach
by TheLastTraveler
Summary: The battle of Reach from the viewpoint of those who were there. My first serious story.


Hey, I finally got it done! The snags I mentioned in Superdenizen X were a bit more extensive than I thought, but I got them worked out and now Chapter 1 is done. This chapter will be shorter than all following chapters as it is the intro. Anywho, enjoy and send thoughts. I don't own Halo.

Outer ring of Orbital Cannon Delta

Lieutenant McKinley UNSC Naval engineers took a moment to look out the ragged hole in the station. All he saw was floating wreckage of the Seraphs that had attacked Orbital Cannon Delta an hour ago. Turning back to his task he fired up the welder and welded the huge Titanium path that Ruscof was holding up with his Cyclops suit.

"Do you think they gave up," Ruscof's thick Russian accent came over the radio.

"Who?"

"The Covenant, do you think they have given up on taking Reach?"

McKinley snorted, "Not likely, when have you heard of the Covenant giving up."

"They retreated at Sigma Octanus IV."

"True, but that was after we beat the holy hell out of them."

"Haven't we beaten the holy hell out of them here?"

"No, we have what? Fiftyish ships left while they still have over 400. They aren't even close to beat."

"We still have fifteen of the super-MACs." Ruscof grasped.

Looking at the damage around them McKinley could only shrug, "More like fourteen and a half."

Ruscof simply nodded ending the conversation.

Command Center of Orbital Cannon Delta

Lt. Commander Orville looked at the main tactical screen. It showed the plot for every ship, station, and chunk of mass bigger than a SUV in the system, what it showed was not pretty. The UNSC fleet had been devastated with roughly 2/3 rolling around space as rubble. What was left had taken up defensive positions around the surviving 15 super-MACs. The Covenant was for the moment content to sit just outside of the maximum range for both sides. He was desperately trying to get his damaged station ready for the attack that could come at any moment. His only comfort was that the three sacrificial repair platforms had died right in front of his gun leaving Delta behind a plasma-proof shield of vaporized titanium. That wouldn't matter though if the hundreds of thousands of Covenant soldiers descending past the UNSC defenses destroyed the reactors on the ground. The Covenant had found five holes in the defense grid (made by the five destroyed MAC guns). Orville sighed and resigned himself to waiting.

Covenant Command Ship _Seeker of Truth_

Thel 'Vadamee paced across the center of the command center. The initial attack on the human planet had been a failure as the planet was defended by massive versions of the Human's shipboard weapons. These cannons had the power to destroy one of his ships with a single shot. Also the humans had deployed three massive shield ships to protect their vessels from his first volley allowing the Humans to get in another shot costing him nearly a third of his fleet. The good news was that the Human fleet was all but destroyed and that Covenant ground forces were able to attack the planet itself thanks to five fiercely contested holes in the planetary defense grid. Scans had shown that the cannons were powered by reactors on the ground that fed energy via energy frequencies. If the Covenant army could destroy those the orbital cannons. Thel wanted to attack the guns with his ships directly by micro-jumping frigates next to the cannons so as to get off plasma torpedoes. His superiors however forbid him from doing that as it had "already cost too many ships". Thel snorted, if they had not called a retreat he could have finished off the Human's guns and fleet with one massed volley. Thel sighed and sat back in his command chair to wait for the signal from the ground forces that the guns were off-line.

Fusion Generator Complex Delta, Reach's surface

Major John Patterson stood on top of the ramparts of the complex. The massive structure was an 11-point star with the actual reactor ten stories down and accessible only by the building in the center of the fort. The fort also had four gates: one North, South, East, and West. Patterson cleared his throat to get the attention of the fort's 900 man garrison.

"Soldiers, I'm not going to bullshit you about perseverance and victory. I'm not going to make some big speech about how great armies have fallen to smaller ones. Most of all I'm not going to lie to you. What I am going to tell you is this: we're screwed. Projected enemy dropship count put their forces at close to 2 million in the first wave. I will tell you this though, every hour this reactor is operational is one more hour that cannon in orbit can fire at the Covenant, and every ship we destroy here is one less ship that can attack Earth. The Covenant have stuck their hand into the lion's mouth and we are going to oblige them by biting it off. Ladies and gentlemen today we fight for every man, woman, and child on Earth and all the remaining colonies. Today there will be a river of blood coming from this fortress, and I can assure you, most of it will not be red."

Patterson turned to check back in with command before it all hit the fan and as he left his men cheered three times. Knowing your about to die finalizes thing and gives you a definite set of priorities by taking away that nagging will to live. Sometimes there are more important things than living.

Covenant Dropship 77215B

The Unggoy named Tiell quaked with fear, he had never been in combat and the few veteran Unggoy had horrible stories of it. He looked around the dropship's bay to see the other fifteen Grunts, the six Jackals and four Elites. The ship had shook violently on the way down, due to anti-air fire the Grunt sergeant named Finek had explained. That same rocking began to happen again.

"Prepare to land," the pilot growled.

Everyone in the craft tuned to the right side of the craft on the Elite's commend and Tiell braced himself. As the craft slowed a cadence of _pings_ and _dings_ rattled all over the still closed hatch. Then one of the Jackals hit the lever and the ramp began to lower.

Covenant Dropship 55794G

Vlam Thundee gripped his plasma carbine tighter. The Phantom had been rocked by a near miss from a surface-to-air missile and the pilot was desperately trying to regain control of his craft. Vlam had heard many stories about the glory of war, but no one had mentioned the fear or helplessness of it. He looked at the red armored Elite next to him, even the Flor Taneknee, veteran of five battles seemed nervous.

"Damn Ship Masters," Flor muttered.

"Pardon," a half-startled Vlam asked.

"The fools were too arrogant to simply come in and drop us off before starting their orbital attack. Now, we have to fly through every defense the humans can muster."

"I thought the humans were weak creature that could not fight," Vlam countered.

"Oh they're scum alright, but damn clever scum. Trust me I've seen them pull every stunt from crazy to clever and they're still not out of ideas."

This did not help Vlam's sense of foreboding as the craft was rocked again by anti-aircraft fire.

"Sir," the pilot called, "the target zone is too hot, I will need to drop you further out."

"You will do no such thing coward," the black armored Elite in the front of the craft barked, "you will drop us as planned or I will kill you myself."

Vlam hoped that the pilot really was a coward otherwise he feared that the human's defenses might just kill them on their way in. Thankfully a few minutes later the pilot called the final warning for landing and began to slow the craft. The pounding of anti-air defenses were replaced by a cacophonous symphony on _pings_, _tings_, and _**thunks**_. The ramp began to descend and the first thought Vlam had as the front row of soldiers was torn apart was: what a pretty sunrise.

Well, there's the first chapter. The speech gave by Major Patterson is a bit cheesy when compared to the original script but I wanted to keep this particular story PG-13. Anyway the second chapter will be out soon. Hoped you enjoyed it.


End file.
